Officials tow “floating island” back to middle of pond - Boston.com

PICTURE From Google Earth

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. –When Kenneth Crimmins moved here from Vermont years ago, he thought he was settling on the edge of a small patch of woods. He didn’t know he had waterfront property and that those woods were actually a rare floating island that had docked in his back yard.

This month, the 10,000 square-foot island settled on a different shore on Island Pond. On Saturday, Crimmins watched as workers once again hauled it to the middle of the pond. It took eight men using two cables capable of pulling 45 tons three hours to “re-float” the island.

Soo coooool!! I want one!

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

1952 radio prank in real Frankenstein castle

On Halloween night in 1952 a reporter from the Armed Forces Network was sent into the family crypt deep under the Frankestein castle in Darmstadt, Germany, where a naughty prank (set up by the show’s producers) awaited him. It’s a six minute-long RealAudio clip, and well worth listening to.

I used be able to see the castle on a hill in the distance from my brother’s attic room window. It was gorgeous! Especially in thunderstorms.

NEWSARAMA - [Updated] STEPHEN KING WRITING HIS DARK TOWER FOR MARVEL

Stephen King and Marvel Comics seems now to be a corroborated collaboration.

On Thursday, Publishers Weekly’s Calvin Reid reported that King has agreed to write a new installment of his own Dark Tower series as a graphic novel to be published in 2006, and drawn by Jae Lee and colorist Richard Isanove.

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

German WWI officer’s photos from the Eastern front
A Flickr user has posted a collection of 127 photos taken by a German army officer on the Eastern Front during WWI. The photos are amazing, running the gamut from ruined buildings and legless corpses lolling in ditches to happy children shoveling snow and mustachioed officers hoisting steins and grinning. Pictured here: bearded POWs on a forced march.

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

HOWTO set an alarm for light sleep periods
Waking up to a buzzer alarm or loud music is traumatic — doubly so if you get woken up in the middle of a dream, when your sleep is deepest. Ideally, your alarm clock would only go off while you were in light sleep. You can wear EEGs or special watches that do this, but wearing an EEG to bed is a little, you know, impractical. Here’s a method for using a music/buzzer alarm-clock to wake yourself up during light sleep, without disturbing a dream.

* Set an alarm to go off before you want to wake up.
* Make the alarm really quiet radio or music.
* Set a second alarm to go off at the latest time you want to wake up.
* Make the alarm the usual loudness.

The whole point is that the first alarm should be so quiet that it will only wake you up if you’re in “light” sleep. Waking up in “light” sleep should leave you feeling more refreshed than waking up in “deep” sleep. The second alarm is the back up to make sure that you wake up in time .

Ken so needs this!! Anyone have any links to a good alarm clock?

The Butterfly Effect (2004)

Plot Outline: A young man (Kutcher) blacks out harmfull memories of significant events of his life. As he grows up he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life.

Whatever you think of Kutcher, this movie was great.

First Sentence:

Against the stars a turtle passes, carrying four elephants on its shell.

Currently reading this next (and last of Rincewind I hear) installment of the Discworld Series. I’m looking forward to reading it after reading a reveiw that said:

There is something gravely amiss with the time-space continuum of the Discworld. Rincewind, our faithful anti-hero who has unknowingly rescued the multiverse from several terminal and quite annoying endings, is stuck in a desolate desert somewhere in a country called EcksEcksEcksEcks. Just a few moments ago he was still hanging around the Island of Agatea, but due to some last minute luck was teleported to his current torment. At least he now has no need to run away from sharp objects and his only concern is to find the next waterhole. No worries. Only, when was the last time you he had a decent conversation with a Kangaroo? But help is on the way: the elite corps of the Unseen University, lead by Archchancellor Ridcully, is on a mission to rescue their lost son. And they are very close. Only one slight detail went wrong: they missed their target by about 300000 years.

In The Last Continent Terry Pratchett has a go at Australia and its strange peculiarities. The result is, as can be expected, a very humorous view on kangaroos, aborigines and corks on strings. But the book offers more than a never-ending flow of Crocodile Dundee puns, it also gives a quite interesting view on time travel and the potential danger of treading on ants that might influence your future in the past. The introduction of the university’s housekeeper, Mrs. Whitlow, leads to an avalanche of in between sheets jokes. But the absolute hilarious episodes of the book start when Rincewind meets the Discworld version of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. I never expected that leather and high heels were that popular in the Discworld.

Free Land of Fantasy presents The Franklin Mint collectibles

As I mentioned in my first post on this new blog, the current template I’m using isn’t exactly what I wanted. I’m not a pink kinda girl.. After more searching, I decided that I liked “An Ode to Winter” on eyeforbeauty.com. I’m willing to pay the $10 license fee, so I sent an email through that page about 2 weeks ago and haven’t heard anything back.

I tried looking up tutorials on making my own template but the ones I found were very vague and didn’t tell me how to get started. I don’t have the time or patience right now to dig through and experiment by myself. If anyone can help, I’m looking for either a link to a thorough tutorial, or a link to a template similar to the one above. Free or Cheap.

First Sentence:

This is where the gods play games with the lives of men, on a board which is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world.

I just finished reading this book. I liked it the best out of the series so far. Ken has me reading them in a specific order, so I don’t know which one is next until he gets home tonight. The legend on the books cover lists the order they were written in.